Over an Open Field
by jeeno2
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Peeta Mellark is looking to escape an abusive home. Katniss Everdeen is just looking for an escape. When the two friends set off in her pick-up truck on a cross country road trip, the last thing they expect to find is each other. Modern day AU.
1. Chapter 1

_**a/n: This mini-fic was inspired by a pair of prompts I got from an anonymous reader on tumblr. It will have two full-length chapters after this prologue and (possibly) a short epilogue.**_

* * *

_So I looked at the scenery;_

_She read her magazine._

_And the moon rose over an open field._

"_Cathy, I'm lost," I said, _

_Though I knew she was sleeping._

"_I'm empty and aching and I don't know why."_

_Countin' the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike_

_They've all gone to look for America._

_- Simon and Garfunkel, "America"_

* * *

Peeta checks his cell phone again anxiously.

3:32 in the morning.

Katniss is late.

Peeta peers out the front window but there's still no sign of her. He paces his family's small living room again, nervously running his hands through his hair.

This had all been her idea. As soon as Katniss got the keys to the used Ford F-151 on her seventeenth birthday she told him, proudly, that she was going to help him run away. Get him as far away from his abusive mother and practically absent father as she could.

"I'll make sure she _never_ gets the chance to take a rolling pin to your face again, Peeta," she told him firmly. They were going to see the country, she said. Together, she said. Just two best friends in a pickup truck.

Peeta could still remember the fierce pride that glinted in her eyes when she told him about her plan. If you could even call it a plan. He's as skeptical today that this is actually a good idea – something that could actually _work_ – as ever. But the memory of how Katniss looked when she told him what she had in mind – from the determined set of her jaw to the placement of her strong hands on her narrow hips – still makes his heart race.

As half-baked as this idea is, he knows he'll never be able to deny Katniss Everdeen anything she wants.

Finally, at 3:37, just as Peeta is about to text Katniss and ask what the holdup is, he sees a pair of headlights approach his home, slow, and then come to a complete stop.

The driver turns on the brights. Once, twice, three times. Their agreed-upon signal for him to come outside and get in the truck.

_Here we go_, Peeta thinks to himself, bracing himself for what's ahead. He grabs the duffel bag he packed a few hours ago and opens his family's front door.

But before he steps outside he pivots so that he's facing inside once more.

He pauses a moment, saying a silent goodbye to the only home he's ever known. And then closes the door behind him.

"Peeta?" Katniss' quiet voice in his ear startles him. Makes him jump. He hadn't heard her get out of the car.

She's always surprising him, this girl.

"Are you ready?" she asks him.

He swallows thickly. "As ready as I'll ever be." He tries, but mostly fails, to keep the nervous tremor out of his voice.

She takes his hand in hers.

"All right then. Let's go."

Peeta nods and follows her into the truck. He swings himself into the passenger seat and fastens his seatbelt. He closes the door, wincing at the loud sound it makes when it slams shut, hoping against hope that he didn't just wake his parents up and ruin everything.

Katniss adjusts her own seatbelt and the radio and looks over her right shoulder.

And then backs out of the Mellarks' driveway for the last time.


	2. Chapter 2

_a/n – Slight change in plans, guys. After looking over my outline I think this story's narrative will flow better (and that this story will feel more like a proper road trip) if I split up the two lengthy chapters I had planned into more, shorter updates. So you can expect 4 or 5 short-ish chapters after this one._

_Many thanks to __**Court**__**81981**__ and __**MalTease**__ for their helpful feedback on this chapter. And thank you to everyone who's reviewed this story and/or added it to their follows/favorites._

* * *

Peeta blinks several times, still half-asleep. Bright sunlight streams in from the windows and the smell of pine hangs heavy in the air.

When he hears someone cough he startles fully awake, disoriented and confused.

He looks to his left and sees Katniss, one hand on the steering wheel of her truck and the other rubbing her eyes. And suddenly he remembers where he is and what they're doing.

As the immediate past comes rushing back to him he relaxes a little in his seat.

"Hey, Katniss," he says sleepily, stretching a little and yawning.

She smiles but doesn't take her eyes off the road. In the bright light of day the dark circles under her eyes are severe.

She must not have slept at all last night, Peeta muses.

"Morning, Peeta" she says in response, stifling a yawn herself.

"Where are we?" his asks, rubbing his eyes. But when he looks out the passenger-side window a moment later and sees snow-capped mountains and tall pine trees he's pretty sure he's figured it out.

"Near Tahoe," Katniss answers, confirming his suspicions. "We've been driving about four hours now."

They drive on in silence for a long while after that. Peeta looks out his window at the mountains in the distance and at the trees whizzing by.

He wills himself to focus on the scenery. On the nearness of the girl sitting next to him. On the music playing on her iPod.

On anything but the enormity of what he's just done.

* * *

Once they reach South Lake Tahoe, Katniss pulls off Interstate 50 and takes a sharp right onto a smaller state highway. She says there's a lake in Mokolumne Wilderness that she hasn't been to in years. A good picnic spot, she says, and far less crowded than Lake Tahoe will be.

They have enough money to eat in restaurants. Cheap places like Subway or Pizza Hut, anyway. Even though they have no real idea where they're headed, they've been saving up for this trip for months.

But Katniss insists that, _goddamnit_, they are going to spend at least part of this trip taking advantage of the fact that they aren't in El Cerrito anymore. Which means, Peeta knows after a lifetime of knowing Katniss, that they'll be having picnics and sleeping under the stars on this trip as often as he'll agree to it.

Peeta hasn't gone camping since they were in the fourth grade together and their teacher took them on an overnight trip to shitty little Folsom Lake. He would never admit this to her, but the great outdoors frighten him a little. Always have.

So he isn't sure he quite likes Katniss' plan.

But he says nothing. He owes her big time, after all. Her and her all-but-deadbeat dad, who got her this truck as a birthday present to assuage his guilty conscience.

Katniss parks the truck when they reach Woods Lake, her intended destination. Peeta climbs out of the passenger seat and stretches. His back. His neck. His legs, which are beginning to ache after sitting for so long. He gets the food and blankets from where they're stashed in the back of the truck and carries it all to the water's edge.

He dimly registers that the surroundings are objectively beautiful. But he's so tired, even after his nap in the truck. As he spreads out the blanket, he decides that all he wants to do for a while is sit and eat. Maybe take another nap.

Katniss joins him on the blanket a few moments later.

"See?" she asks him, her features drooping with exhaustion. "I told you it was pretty here."

She stretches languidly – like a cat, Peeta thinks fleetingly – and lies down next to him on the blanket.

She is asleep in seconds.

Peeta ignores the lake and their bucolic surroundings and watches Katniss sleep for what feels like a very long time.

He realizes, with a start, that this is the first time he's ever seen Katniss Everdeen's face without a scowl.

He finds he can't look away.

* * *

Over lunch a few hours later, Peeta takes out the roadmap of the United States he picked up from a gas station a few days ago.

He lays it flat across the blanket so they can both look at it.

Peeta's never been east of Reno before. He traces Interstate 80 with his fingertip. He marvels at just how _far_ it goes, despite the fact that he knows he sounds like an idiot talking like that.

He tells Katniss he'd like to keep heading east for a while and just see what's out there.

"Ok," she says, nodding, as she brushes the crumbs off her lap. "Sounds good to me."

He begins fidgeting with the Coke can next to him.

"When do you have to be home, Katniss?" he asks her. He can't look her in the eye. "I mean, when will people start to…"

He trails off.

"I really don't think my mom gives a shit when I come home, Peeta," she tells him boldly.

This doesn't surprise Peeta much. Katniss' mother has never been much of an actual mother to her. As far as he knows, she's never knocked her around the way his own mother has done him; but she's never been much of a presence in Katniss' life, either. She works nights a lot. Peeta knows she's rarely even home.

But Katniss' mother wasn't really who Peeta was asking about.

"What about Gale?" he asks. His voice cracks a little, to his immense chagrin, when he says Gale's name. He tries to cover it up with a cough and hopes Katniss didn't notice.

Gale. Katniss' nineteen-year-old boyfriend. _Gale_.

Now it's Katniss' turn to look away.

"Gale and I broke up last week, Peeta," she mumbles.

His eyes snap to her.

"You… you _did_?" he asks. His voice cracks again. He cringes inwardly.

She turns to him and nods.

"It just… wasn't working anymore."

Peeta's hand opens and closes around the Coke can, over and over again. He's only vaguely aware that he's doing it.

He doesn't know what to say.

"I'm… sorry, Katniss." He figures that's a good start.

But he isn't sorry.

* * *

They end up spending the entire day at Woods Lake, just napping and talking.

Shortly before 3 p.m., Katniss announces that she's going to teach Peeta how to fish. She runs back to the truck eagerly, her long braid bouncing behind her.

She returns with fishing equipment before Peeta even has a chance to protest.

The lesson is an abject failure. Peeta's never fished before. Before today, he'd never even been within ten feet of a fishing pole. He discovers, right away, that he can't even deal with the sight of live bait wriggling on the hook.

After he gives up and goes ashore, he watches Katniss catch two sizable lake trout all by herself.

Katniss brings the fish back to their little area at the water's edge and cleans them with ease. She builds a small campfire. Peeta fries the fish up for an early dinner.

"How did you learn how to do all this stuff?" Peeta asks her after they've finished eating. It's something he's always wondered about his friend. "I mean, you grew up in the suburbs just like I did."

Katniss shrugs. "I watch a lot of nature stuff on TV, I guess." She pokes at the ground with a stick. "And sometimes, Gale and I would… do this kind of stuff together." She shrugs again.

"Oh," Peeta says. What else _can_ he say?

She looks up at him and smiles. "It's a lot more fun doing it with you though."

* * *

The sun is beginning to set. The campfire goes out and suddenly the thin, mountain air is very chilly. Peeta guesses the Sierras Nevadas don't care that it's summer.

To his immense relief, when he suggests they spend the night in a hotel tonight rather than camping out, Katniss readily agrees.

Maybe she feels, as he does, that tonight they need a good night's sleep more than anything.

They pile back into the truck and drive east until they reach a town in Nevada called Winnemucca. They quickly discover there isn't much to this town. But they agree that they've done more than enough driving for one day.

Peeta proposes they find some cheap motel so they can make their money last as long as possible. Katniss says that sounds fine.

Peeta checks his phone for the nearest one. It's the first time he's looked at his phone all day.

He decides to ignore, for now, the notifications saying he has nine unread texts and three voicemails. He wonders fleetingly how many Katniss must have, despite her earlier insistence that no one would care she was gone.

"The closest motel to us is something called 'The Lonely Traveler.'" Peeta grins at her and she rolls her eyes, which makes him laugh.

Still laughing, he reads off the directions to Katniss as she drives.

The motel lobby smells bad. Like stale cigarette smoke and cats and something else Peeta can't quite identify. But he knows they can't be too picky.

The old lady behind the counter looks at them funny when Peeta asks for a room.

"Oh, it's ok. We're married," Katniss offers quickly before Peeta can stop her, presumably in an attempt to get the woman's eyebrows to resume their normal position on her face.

Peeta wonders if he's imagining the blush he sees on Katniss' cheeks.

"Hm," is all the woman says in response. Whether or not she believes Katniss' story she doesn't say. But she hands over the key to room 212 either way.

Peeta carries their bags down the dim hallway as Katniss leads the way, key in hand. The door to their room creaks loudly on its hinges when she opens it.

Sitting in the middle of the room is a lone double bed. The mattress sags in the middle but the bedding appears clean. Which is more than Peeta can say for the sofa by the window and the carpet.

But clearly, the sofa or the floor is where he'll be sleeping tonight all the same.

"I'll… just get changed in there," Peeta says, suddenly feeling very awkward, his face hot. He gestures lamely to the bathroom.

"All right," Katniss says, turning down the bed.

Peeta practically runs towards the bathroom, accidentally bumping into the doorknob in his haste. Behind him, he can hear Katniss laughing.

His face burns hotter.

* * *

Five minutes later Peeta emerges, clad in a white t-shirt and gray sweatpants.

"What are you doing?" Katniss asks him as he takes one of the pillows, and the comforter, off the bed.

"I'm… taking this stuff so I can sleep on the sofa," he says. He wonders if she can see his embarrassment in the darkness of the room.

"Oh, you don't need to do that," she says. "Here. There's plenty of space in the bed." She pats the empty spot next to her. "I'll make room."

"Um… are you sure?" he asks, nervously.

"Of course," she tells him. "Don't be silly. This bed will be so much more comfortable than that nasty couch."

Her tone of voice brooks no opposition. He doesn't try to argue.

Gingerly, he sits down on the bed and lies down next to her. He tries to take up as little space as possible. But the bed is small, and their legs brush once, twice, as he settles himself.

"Goodnight, Peeta," she murmurs quietly. She rolls over onto her side so that she's facing him. Her eyes are shining gray pools, reflecting the light from the streetlamps just outside their window.

She bumps his foot with one of hers.

"Night, Katniss," he breathes.

Peeta wonders if she can feel him shaking.

He falls asleep, the feel of her breath ghosting over his face.

* * *

_A hot iron. A door slamming on fingers. Broken fingers. _

_The baseball bat he keeps beside his bed just in case. But she finds it, the way she finds everything. Breaks it over his head._

_Screaming. He's screaming. _Everyone's_ screaming._

Gentle, strong arms embrace his flailing body. Nimble fingers smooth back the sweaty hair from his forehead. Soft lips tenderly kiss his cheek.

"Peeta," Katniss murmurs in his ear. "It's only a nightmare. Wake up, Peeta. Everything's ok."

He slowly comes to himself. His breathing regulates as Katniss runs her fingers reassuringly up and down his arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.

He's so embarrassed he thinks he might die.

He clears his throat.

"I'm… sorry if I woke you, Katniss," he says, sheepishly.

Peeta can feel her shake her head on the pillow. "Don't apologize," she says quietly. "You did nothing wrong."

Peeta nods. But he doesn't agree.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" she asks him a moment later.

"No," he tells her honestly. He doesn't want to relive it right now. He doesn't want to relive it ever. "It's nothing you don't already know about anyway."

"Ok," she says. She pauses before continuing. "Do you have nightmares about your mom a lot?"

"No," he says again. Also the truth.

He doesn't tell her what most of his nightmares are actually about. His courage doesn't stretch that far.

Fortunately, Katniss doesn't press.

They lie awake together for what must be at least another hour. Her arms wrapped around him, his head on her chest.

They've never done anything like this before. Touching each other like this. But it feels so good. So impossibly good. And Peeta doesn't dare move away.

Shortly before dawn, she speaks again.

"Are you still awake, Peeta?" she asks. She sounds almost nervous.

"Yeah."

"I'm… so sorry," she tells him. It's a whisper. "That I couldn't keep you safe. That… that this is the best I can do for you."

Peeta turns to look at her. The earnest expression he sees on her face breaks him.

Unbidden, the thought – the elephant in the living room; the unanswerable question that's looming over everything – rushes to the forefront of his mind.

_What the _fuck_ am I going to do now?_

Without warning, Peeta bursts into tears.

He buries his face in her chest and her arms wrap around him tightly.

He cries himself to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

_a/n - Thanks again to everyone who's left comments on this little story, and for adding it to your follows and favorites. Unfortunately, due to the holidays this will be the last update before the New Year. I plan to wrap up the story in the first week or two of January. _

_In the meantime, come find me on tumblr, where I blog about… well, all sorts of random things. Info in my profile. _

* * *

Peeta wakes up just before dawn. Katniss is still asleep, her small, strong body wrapped tightly around his like a protective cocoon.

Peeta cranes his neck a little and looks down at her face.

He realizes that he loves watching her sleep. She looks so relaxed right now. So peaceful. Her lips are slightly parted and her unbraided hair tickles his arm.

He gingerly touches his own face. His eyes feel puffy and warm from crying.

A rush of mortification hits him when he thinks about what happened last night. How he broke down and sobbed – _like a complete tool_, his brother would say – in her arms.

Katniss moves a little in her sleep, settling even closer to him. As she shifts, her leg, already entwined with one of his, unconsciously rubs against his cock.

She leaves her leg there and presses into him.

Peeta gasps, and all remorse he feels about last night evaporates.

All he can think about now is that he needs to get out of this bed. And fast. His cock – already half-hard to begin with (because he just woke up with a girl wrapped around him and he's seventeen) – is growing noticeably harder by the second.

But he doesn't know how to get out of bed without waking Katniss. And, more importantly, without alerting her to the fact that she's pressed up against his dick.

Peeta quickly decides that he'd rather _die_ than have Katniss find out she's pressed up against his dick.

As he worries, Katniss sighs into his neck and tightens her hold on him. The feel of her warm breath on his sensitive skin is otherworldly. He shudders involuntarily. And his cock twitches, hard, against both the fabric of his sweatpants and her thigh.

_Oh, fuck_.

Peeta tries to displace Katniss from his body as gently as he can.

"Wait… what?" Katniss asks, sleepily, waking up.

Peeta's eyes go wide with terror. But a moment later she rolls over onto her side and away from him.

Peeta throws himself out of bed and sprints for the safety of the motel bathroom.

Once there he closes the door quietly behind him. He looks down at his crotch. The front of his sweatpants sticks out from his body cartoonishly.

He closes his eyes and shakes his head.

With a quiet sigh, he braces himself against the sink with one hand and reaches into the waistband of his sweatpants with the other.

He grasps himself firmly. He groans.

He tries not to think about how _good_ it felt to have Katniss' leg pressed up against him like that.

* * *

They set out shortly after 8 a.m.

They don't like Nevada much and quickly agree that their best course of action is to just get through the rest of it as quickly as possible. Given the speed of the other cars they see on the road, Peeta wonders if perhaps their fellow travelers have a similar idea.

They decide to stop for lunch at a Denny's once they're only fifty miles from the Utah border.

And it's there, over burgers and fries, that Katniss abruptly insists that they need to check their voicemails and text messages sometime today.

Peeta almost chokes on his hamburger.

"Do we… _really_ have to?" he asks her once he's recovered. His voice comes out whinier than he'd intended.

Katniss looks at him sternly. Which surprises him a little, given how gentle she was with him last night. She waves her fork at him. "Yes, Peeta. Of course we do." She turns back to her milkshake, wordlessly telling him that this conversation is over.

Peeta spends the rest of the meal swirling one of his french fries around in a pool of ketchup. He isn't hungry anymore.

* * *

They agree to do it separately.

Peeta waits until they've stopped the truck at the edge of the salt flats in western Utah.

Peeta doesn't want to stop here. The bright, white wasteland is so bizarre, so surreal, that he isn't quite certain they're still on planet Earth. The salt that stretches for miles in all directions permeates the air and irritates his eyes, his nose, his everything.

It freaks him out, this place.

But Katniss begs him to stop the truck so she can have a look, and so he does.

Peeta watches her as she gracefully walks across the ancient sea. She holds her arms aloft as she walks, as if she's trying to balance carefully on a log that's been suspended over a rushing river.

He looks down at the phone in his hand and turns it on.

He does the texts first.

There are eleven of them. Eight are from his mother. The first few demand to know where he is. Most of the rest are descriptions of what she'll do to him if he doesn't come home immediately.

Her last one, sent this morning, simply asks him to contact her.

There's a text from Katniss from about fifteen minutes ago: _You can do this, Peeta, I know you can._

He smiles and rolls his eyes.

There's one from his friend, Cato, the only person to whom he'd confided his plans, wishing him luck_. _And then one from his brother Rye, sent last night, telling him to stop being an asshole and just call their mother already.

Peeta listens to the voicemails next. Two hang ups from his mom. One irate message from his boss at the Starbucks on Solano Avenue, asking him where the hell he is.

He thinks about what he should do with all these messages.

He told Katniss he'd check them. But he never promised her he'd respond to them.

In fact, the thought of responding to any of them makes him want to throw up. So he deletes them all.

After, he walks out to join Katniss in the salt.

* * *

They decide to leave the salt flats after another fifteen minutes of exploration, their eyes stinging.

As Peeta drives, out of the corner of his eye he sees Katniss delicately swipe the tip of her tongue across her forearm.

His body's reaction is explosive and unexpected. He needs to adjust the front of his pants, right now. But he can't do it _here_. Not in front of her, and not while he's driving.

He squirms in his seat.

"I can still taste the salt, Peeta," she tells him, sounding awed, licking her arm again. "That place was really weird, wasn't it."

* * *

Peeta likes eastern Utah a lot better than the salt flats.

It's beautiful here. It reminds him of the Sierras, in a way, all mountains and valleys and streams. But it's much greener than the Sierras.

Or perhaps it just _seems_ greener to him after a day spent driving across the desert wastelands of Nevada and western Utah.

They stop and stretch their legs at a scenic lookout near Park City. Katniss leans over the railing, the mountains behind her creating a stunning backdrop.

Peeta wishes, suddenly, that he'd thought to bring some of his drawing stuff with him on this trip.

He stands behind Katniss for a long time as she looks out into the distance, seemingly lost in thought, her long braid draped over one shoulder. He tries to commit her features, the scene, all of it, to memory.

The next time he's in the same room as a decent pencil and some paper, he wants to be prepared.

* * *

Katniss pulls out the road map the next time they stop for gas.

She tells Peeta they're almost to Wyoming. She asks if he wants to stop for the night here, near Park City, or keep driving.

Peeta shrugs. "Doesn't matter to me," he tells her. And it doesn't.

Katniss nods.

"Well, if we keep going, we can stay on the air base in Cheyenne," she tells him. "It's cheap, and the place we'd be staying will probably be pretty nice for what we're spending. One perk to technically being a military brat, I suppose." She rolls her eyes, the way she does whenever she mentions her father.

As beautiful as this area is, Peeta is intrigued at the idea of spending the night on a military installation. Other than Alameda, which hardly counts, he's never been on one before.

"How far is it to Cheyenne?" he asks.

Katniss digs out her phone to check. She's quiet for a moment as she looks at the directions. "Um. It's pretty far away," she tells him. "It looks like… six hours away, probably."

The sun is beginning to set, and if they drive all the way to Cheyenne tonight Peeta knows they'll be getting to the military base in the middle of the night.

But he tells her he thinks they should press on all the same. Says that aside from this little area, he's been kind of underwhelmed by everything they've seen since Tahoe.

"So let's, like, maybe just have today be one long driving day," he proposes. "And then maybe, tomorrow, we can set out for Colorado? See Denver, or the Rockies or something."

Katniss nods. "Sounds good to me."

She puts her phone back in her pocket and gets in the truck.

* * *

It's late, and Katniss is hungry.

As they pull through the McDonald's drive-thru, Peeta decides to ask her.

"Did you check your messages, Katniss?"

"Yeah. Just my mom," she says. But she doesn't elaborate further. "Did you check to?"

He nods. "My mom, too," is all he says.

He doesn't want to elaborate further, either.

He refuses to cry in front of Katniss. Ever again.

And Katniss doesn't pry. She only whispers, "I'm so proud of you, Peeta." She reaches over and puts her hand on his thigh. She gives it a squeeze.

She leaves her hand there.

Peeta, summoning all of his courage, and with his heartbeat thudding in his ears, covers her hand with his own. Terrified, even as he does it, that this gesture will freak her out, somehow. That she'll pull her hand away.

But she doesn't pull her hand away.

She flips her hand over on his leg and grasps his hand in her own.

They drive on in silence for a long time after that.

* * *

Peeta doesn't remember exactly what he used to think about when he'd try and imagine what his first kiss would be like.

What he _does_ know is that he never, in his wildest dreams, imagined that Katniss would initiate it in the middle of a bed, on a military base, in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

One minute, Peeta is getting ready for bed in the bathroom. Splashing cold water on his face with shaking hands and trying to calm himself down. Telling himself that the way she was looking at him in the truck, at the gas station an hour ago, and just now, in the bedroom, meant nothing.

That she's just his friend. That he's just _her_ friend.

And the next minute, Katniss is closing the distance between them in the bed and kissing him.

At the first gentle press of her lips to his, he pulls back in surprise before he can stop himself.

"Katniss? What –" he stammers, thunderstruck. The synapses in his brain are misfiring. He is reeling.

But she cuts him off before he can finish his question with another kiss. A more forceful one this time.

"I just… want to kiss you," she murmurs after she pulls away a moment later. She shrugs as if this were the most natural thing in the world.

Peeta wouldn't be more shocked if she had just sprouted wings and started flying around the room.

"You… you do?" he asks her, incredulously.

She pushes Peeta onto his back and climbs on top of him by way of response.

His eyes go wide.

"Katniss," he whimpers, knowing, even if he can't quite remember what he used to dream about, that in this moment he wants nothing more than to kiss her, too.

Katniss insists they leave their clothes on. Even still, Peeta isn't really sure what to do. Where to touch her, or how. But Katniss guides his hands, his mouth, and his fingertips, and soon enough she's whimpering, too, as he trails open-mouthed kisses down her neck and twines his tongue with hers.

Later, as he drifts off to sleep, her head on his chest and her arms wrapped around him, Peeta can't help but wonder if any of this is real.


	4. Chapter 4

_a/n: Thanks once again to the lovely **Court81981** and **MalTease** for pre-reading this chapter for me. And thank you again to everyone who has reviewed this story and added it to their follows/favorites. You are all the best._

* * *

They fell asleep so late last night that Peeta doesn't wake until close to ten the next morning.

When he turns his head he sees Katniss, also awake, next to him in the big comfortable bed. All she's wearing is her little sleep shirt. She stretches and it rises all the way up her thighs.

She must have kicked off the blankets in the night, Peeta muses. He can't tear his eyes away from her legs, bare all the way up to where they disappear at the edge of her underwear.

He decides, right then, how he wants to spend the day. And he wastes no time telling Katniss his plan.

To his dismay, though, she immediately rejects his suggestion that they spend the whole day making out.

"Don't be silly, Peeta," she says sternly, pushing him away. But she's fighting a smile.

"_Silly_?" he asks, in mock offense. "I think it's a brilliant idea." And he does. He's gone the past seventeen years without kissing Katniss Everdeen. Now that he knows with absolute certainty that he _wants_ to kiss her – that he should have started kissing her years ago, really – he sees no point in wasting time doing anything else.

So he tries again, rolling over and pressing a kiss to her lips. She playfully swats at his bare shoulder.

"I thought you wanted to see the Rockies," she reminds him. But her words trail off and her eyes flutter closed as he traces the outer shell of her ear with his tongue.

Peeta still cannot believe this is happening.

"_Fuck_ the Rockies," he murmurs before biting down gently on her earlobe.

At that, Katniss pushes him away again and says she wants him to make breakfast. They need to get going soon, she tells him – so they can make camp before sundown.

"We can't afford hotels every night, Peeta," she says. She's right, of course; much as Peeta doesn't want to admit it. "They'll charge us for another night if we stay here past one."

Peeta sits up and sighs.

"Fine," he says, resigned. "I'll go to the store and get stuff for pancakes."

She smiles at him and pads off to the bathroom.

As Peeta drives to the base commissary much faster than he knows he probably should, he wonders, his heart racing, if she'll at least let him kiss the maple syrup off her lips after they're done eating.

And to his delight, she does.

* * *

But it doesn't last long.

Peeta notices, immediately, when it happens. He's driving south along the interstate, about to cross over into Colorado. And suddenly, everything changes.

She takes her hand from his. She tucks her legs up to her chin on the passenger seat. She wraps her arms around her knees.

It looks like she's trying to disappear into herself.

"What's wrong?" Peeta asks, alarmed. Even though he suspects she won't want to talk about it. _He's_ the talkative one; not her. But she's scaring him now, and the question tumbles out of him before he can stop it.

It doesn't matter, though. Katniss doesn't respond. She turns her head in the opposite direction and looks out the window of the truck as they begin their ascent into the mountains.

* * *

Katniss speaks, at last, when they pull the truck up to their campsite.

"I'm scared."

Peeta startles at the sound of her voice.

It's the first thing she's said aloud in six hours.

"Scared of what?" he asks. He tries to keep the note of pleading out of his voice. But he's spent the better part of the day racking his brain for a possible explanation for her sudden change in behavior, and his words are laced with desperation.

"Of turning into her," she says simply, with no clarification, as though her meaning is obvious.

"Of turning into _who_?" Peeta asks, because it isn't.

Katniss doesn't answer him right away. Peeta comes to a complete stop at Campsite #14 and they both get out of the truck. Katniss walks about five feet and sits down heavily on a rock.

She puts her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands.

"I'm scared of turning into my mom, Peeta" she says, finally, so quietly that at first Peeta isn't certain she's said anything at all.

"Your mom," he repeats, slowly, still struggling to understand.

"She… loved my dad too much," Katniss mumbles. She won't look him in the eye. She studies her nails. Her face is flushed.

Peeta's heart stops beating and his eyes go wide as saucers.

Katniss walks back to the truck and takes their sleeping bags out of the cab. She turns around to face him.

"It nearly killed her when he left us," she clarifies. "I can't let that happen to me. Not ever."

Katniss drops the sleeping bags on the ground. She turns back to the truck and rifles around in the cab for their tent.

She begins setting up camp.

Peeta doesn't offer to help her.

She doesn't ask him to.

* * *

Katniss sleeps in the tent with him that night. But she leaves as much space between their bodies as the cramped canvas will allow.

"I will never, ever hurt you," Peeta vows quietly into her hair as she sleeps, the smell of campfire clinging to her like a lover's embrace.

Katniss rolls over. She sighs.

She doesn't wake up.

But her breath ghosts over his face as she lies dreaming, and Peeta can't sleep.

He crawls out of the tent. He looks up at the billions of constellations in the cloudless sky.

Suddenly reminded of an old movie he saw with his brothers a very long time ago, Peeta laughs a little under his breath, and murmurs, "Oh, my god. It's full of stars."

He wonders, wistfully, what advice his brothers would have for him right now if they were here.

* * *

Katniss is already gone when Peeta wakes up the next morning.

Panicked, and imagining the worst, he bolts from the tent.

But the truck is still parked where they left it yesterday. When he sees it, he lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

She can't have gone far, Peeta tells himself.

Peeta doesn't want to just sit around and wait for her to come back. There's nothing to do here, really, all by himself.

And he _has_ always wanted to see the Rockies.

He decides to go for a hike. He thinks it might clear his head.

As he walks, he notes animal tracks all along the earthen trail. But he doesn't see any of the animals that must have left them behind.

Peeta wonders where they are. He wonders if he's making too much noise as he walks.

He wonders if maybe he's frightened the animals away, the way he obviously frightened Katniss away, even though he never meant to and all he'd ever wanted, before _she_ kissed _him_, was to be her friend.

Peeta picks up a rock and throws it, as hard as he can, against the trunk of a small tree.

A small flock of birds, startled, takes flight from its branches. They quork madly at Peeta as they fly away.

He finds another rock and throws it impotently after them. But he misses by a mile.

* * *

Peeta finds his way back to camp after about two hours in the woods, his head no clearer than it had been when he left.

Katniss is there when he gets back. Waiting for him.

But she isn't alone. When Peeta sees three new people with her, his stomach sinks.

They quickly introduce themselves. Jo, Annie, and Finnick, they tell him. Katniss met them this morning at the lake while he was hiking.

"I was fishing, but I was out of bait," Katniss explains. "These guys were fishing too. They gave me some worms."

The boy named Finnick winks at Peeta. He flashes Peeta a toothy grin. Finnick's tall, and tanned, and his bronze hair looks deliberately mussed, the way Peeta knows a lot of girls like.

Peeta decides right away that he doesn't like Finnick. Not at all. That he might even hate Finnick.

But Katniss invited them to stay for lunch, and so there's nothing Peeta can do about his hatred of Finnick right now.

He isn't about to be an _asshole_ to these people.

Peeta walks off to the truck and offers, in a voice he hopes sounds amiable, to make sandwiches for everyone.

* * *

Over lunch they tell Peeta that they're college students from Iowa about to start their third year. They're driving back to campus after a summer spent on a South Dakota Native American reservation.

"We taught summer reading classes," Annie explains.

Jo adds that they're taking a meandering route back. They're spending another two weeks here, in the Rockies, before the fall semester starts.

"It was such a wonderful experience, Peeta," Annie says, as she explains the work she did on the Reservation. She puts her hand on Finnick's arm.

Finnick turns to look at Annie.

The look in his eyes immediately tells Peeta that his initial judgment of Finnick's character had been dead wrong.

Peeta glances at Katniss.

She's sitting at the opposite end of the table. She's watching Finnick look at Annie too.

Annie leans over and kisses Finnick. Right on the lips. In front of everyone. Finnick's grin when she pulls away threatens to split his face in two.

"Oy!" Johanna shouts, shoving a handful of chips in her mouth and rolling her eyes. "Get a room already, would you? Jesus Fucking Christ!"

But Finnick only laughs. He takes Annie's hand in his. Gives it a theatrical, loud, smacking kiss. It makes Annie giggle.

Out of the corner of his eye Peeta can see that Katniss is still watching them.

* * *

They spend the entire day with their new friends.

After a day of easy chatter Peeta definitely feels comfortable calling them his friends.

They roast marshmallows after dinner. As they sit around the campfire, twirling their sticks, Finnick regales Katniss and Peeta with elaborate tales of his college misadventures.

But Jo keeps rolling her eyes the longer he goes on, and Annie tries to hide her smiles in the palm of her hand. Peeta deduces from this that at least half of what Finnick is telling them is a complete fabrication.

At around ten – after the marshmallows and the beers their friends brought over are all gone – Annie, Finnick, and Jo make to leave for their own campsite.

Katniss wishes them a good night. She smiles at them. A genuine smile that reaches her eyes. She says they'll see them in the morning.

And then suddenly, he and Katniss are alone for the first time all day.

Peeta's stomach is awash in butterflies.

"Um… I'm tired," he blurts out, not knowing what else to say.

Katniss nods. A little shyly. "I'm tired too," she says. She looks Peeta in the eye for the first time since Cheyenne.

The look he sees there makes his heart skip a beat.

Without another word, Katniss turns on her heels and climbs into the tent.

Peeta quickly changes into his sleep clothes out in the open. He climbs into the tent after her.

She's lying on her side, facing him, her eyes open.

Wearing nothing at all.

"Katniss!" he says, shocked, his voice strangled in his throat.

He uses all the strength he has to keep his eyes trained on her face.

His whole body shaking, he slowly lies down next to her.

"I don't know if I can ever be like that with you, Peeta," she says.

"Like – like what?" Peeta asks, his voice cracking a little. But he thinks he might already know what she's trying to say.

"The way Finnick and Annie are with each other," she clarifies. "They don't doubt their love at all. You can just tell. The way she looks at him. The way he holds her." She shakes her head.

"Katniss, it's—"

"My dad leaving really fucked me up, Peeta," she interrupts.

"I don't need you to be like Annie," he tells her honestly. Katniss' face is very close to his. Her _everything_ is very close to his. He feels dizzy and a little drunk. "I don't even know what it is I want. It's all really confusing to me too."

She touches his face. He swallows audibly.

"I never expected any of this to happen," he adds. "All I know is… when we were kissing the other night… I just wanted that to never end."

He wonders, suddenly, if he's allowed to look at her body. If maybe she wants him to.

But he forces himself to keep looking into her beautiful gray eyes all the same.

"You've been hurt so much, Peeta." She lifts her hand and brushes his hair off his forehead. The movement brings the pert, dusky tips of her breasts into his peripheral vision.

His resolve crumbles.

His eyes dart downwards of their own accord.

He cannot look away.

"Oh my god, Katniss…" he breathes. He wants to touch them. He wants to touch her.

"I mean… your mom, Peeta. I just don't want to cause you any more pain."

"Then kiss me," he breathes, pleading. "_Please_."

She smiles at him. She reaches over and, to his surprise, deftly unbuttons his sleep shirt. He doesn't move to stop her. He couldn't even if he wanted to.

She climbs on top of him, her eyes unreadable. She leans forward so that their bare torsos are touching.

Katniss' nipples are hard little pebbles against his chest. Peeta whimpers before he can stop himself. He winds his arms around her.

"All right," she whispers against his lips, nodding. Smiling.

And she kisses him.


	5. Chapter 5

_a/n: Many thanks to **Court81981** and **MalTease** for reviewing an early version of this chapter and for their very helpful feedback. _

_Two more chapters after this one. Thank you so much for reading along. All of your reviews, follows, and favorites mean so much to me. _

* * *

Peeta and Finnick get out of the truck and walk towards the convenience store.

Mountain Mart, it's called. It's a crappy little store, but it's the only store of any kind within ten miles of their campsite. As such, they visit it daily.

Never before for this specific purpose, though.

Just as Peeta's about to open the front door, he freezes. He realizes he can't go through with it.

He turns to Finnick and tells him he's changed his mind.

Finnick just rolls his eyes. He yanks open the door and unceremoniously shoves Peeta inside.

Peeta notices right away that the cashier has to be at least seventy years old if she's a day, and his stomach sinks.

Finnick inclines his head towards him. "Look," he says, conspiratorially. "I'll get the fishing bait and the beer. You get the stuff for dinner… and the _other stuff_." He places special emphasis on the last two words. "We'll meet outside afterwards. All right?" He elbows Peeta in the ribs and smirks at him.

It occurs to Peeta that bringing Finnick along for this was probably a mistake. But there's nothing he can do about it now.

Finnick claps Peeta on the back, and strides off towards the beer display in the back of the store.

Peeta lingers near the front door for a long moment after that, wiping his sweaty palms on his pant legs. He pretends to be engrossed in the magazines.

But in truth, he really doesn't care about Taylor Swift's fashion tips, or that Kirstie Allie was recently spotted wearing a bikini.

After another few minutes he decides he's put off the inevitable long enough. He takes a deep breath and slowly wanders over to the aisle with the condoms.

There's only one brand to choose from, and Peeta breathes a sigh of relief. He won't have to decide _what kind_ to get, at least.

He makes a quick mental note that there are eight in a box and grabs one. He tries to hide the box under his arm as he wanders the store, absent-mindedly collecting items for dinner.

After he has a bag of chips, a six-pack of diet coke, and a package of hamburger buns, Peeta approaches the register, and the ancient woman behind it, and plunks everything down on the counter. He takes his phone out of his pocket and pretends to text someone so he doesn't have to make eye contact with her.

His heart is pounding. He wonders if she can hear it.

She punches some buttons on her register and tells him it comes to $31.75. Peeta pulls forty dollars from his wallet and glances up as he hands her the money.

As she takes it from him, she looks right at him with one eyebrow raised.

And with that, Peeta suddenly realizes that this old lady knows. That she just fucking _knows_.

He quickly grabs his purchases.

Without waiting for either his change or Finnick, he bolts from the store.

* * *

On their drive back up the mountain, Peeta tries to calm himself down by looking at the scenery.

But all he can think about is whether he bought the wrong kind after all. Katniss hadn't been specific, and it's not like he knows what the hell he's doing.

At least Finnick has the decency not to give him any more shit as he drives.

* * *

They pull up to Katniss' and Peeta's campsite fifteen minutes later.

After parking the truck, Finnick takes the nightcrawlers and beer out of the back seat. "I'll see you guys at dinner," he says.

Katniss appears, crawling out of the tent, at the sound of Finnick's voice. She walks up behind Peeta and puts her arm around him. She tucks herself into his side.

Peeta turns to look at her. He swallows audibly, his recent purchase heavy in his back pocket.

"See you later, Finn," Katniss says, waving goodbye with her free hand.

When Finnick is out of sight, Katniss turns to Peeta and smiles nervously.

"Hi," she says. The note of shyness in her voice tugs at his heart.

"Hey," he says in response.

"Did you…?" she begins to ask, and trails off. She looks away, and a blush starts to rise on her cheeks.

Peeta nods. If he had a mirror he knows he'd see a blush on his own cheeks that matched hers.

She looks up at him again and closes the distance between them. She cradles his face in her hands and kisses him, gently, on the lips.

After a moment she breaks away, her eyes half-lidded and dark.

But Peeta pulls her back to him. He kisses her again, more forcefully this time, twining his tongue with hers and winding one hand through her long dark hair.

Trying to conjure up bravery that he does not feel, he snakes his other hand down and palms her ass, squeezing gently. Katniss whimpers. His cock twitches once, hard, against the fabric of his boxers at the sound.

Wordlessly, and without breaking the kiss or letting him go, Katniss slowly backs herself towards the tent.

He follows her inside.

* * *

Peeta tries so hard to hang on.

He tries to think about baseball. About Algebra.

But it doesn't help.

Because Katniss is moving over him now, and her breasts are bouncing against his chest, and her legs are wrapped around him, and her beautiful tight body is squeezing him, pulling him, stroking him. With each movement of her hips she invades his every thought, all his memories, everything he's ever believed, and she leaves him helpless, panting, starving.

He can hear himself moan incoherently when she starts to speed up. His fingertips dig into her hips involuntarily.

"Come for me," Katniss pants into his ear. "Please." And he squeezes his eyes shut, both desperate to stay with her and desperate to let go.

She leans forward and sucks one of his nipples into her mouth. She bites down gently and swirls her tongue.

The world explodes and he comes apart with a cry.

* * *

Afterwards, Peeta tries to help her finish too.

But even after spending most of the past three days worshiping nearly every inch of her body, her body still confuses him. And he can't quite manage it.

She asks him, a little sheepishly, if it would be all right if she took over.

Peeta watches, mesmerized, as she quickly circles her clit with her fingers. She takes his hand and wordlessly encourages him to insert two fingers as she plays with herself.

It isn't much longer before her entire body clamps down around him and she arches her back off the ground. Peeta thinks that her face, in this moment, is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

As she tries to catch her breath, Peeta brushes her hair back from her face. He tenderly, reverently, kisses her forehead, the tip of her nose, and each cheek.

Feeling a little chagrined at his incompetency, Peeta promises her that he'll get it right next time.

At his words, Katniss pulls his face down to hers and kisses his lips.

"You already have, Peeta," she tells him quietly. "You already have."

* * *

She falls asleep in his arms, her hair tickling his nose.

Peeta stays awake, lost in thought, holding her as she naps.

He doesn't know what name to give what he and Katniss are to each other now. Words have always meant a lot to him, and this ambiguity bothers him.

However, he suspects Katniss wouldn't want to talk about it if he brought it up. And the last thing he wants to do is chase her away again.

He wonders, briefly, if not naming this is actually what's giving her the courage to stick around and be with him in the first place.

In the end, Peeta decides to be patient. To wait a while before initiating this conversation.

After all, he's not even certain what he _wants_ to call this.

He kisses the top of her head as she dreams. Breathes her in. Relishes the feel of her body in his arms.

This - whatever _this_ is - is enough for now.

* * *

They meet Annie, Finnick, and Johanna at the lake for a barbecue that evening. Peeta mans the grill while the girls and Finnick play in the water.

Annie protested this arrangement at first. She said that they should all take turns at the grill. But Peeta said he didn't mind being in charge and encouraged Annie to join the others. He misses cooking, he told her. He wants to do this.

While all of that is true, Peeta's real motivation is that he doesn't know how to swim. Being in the water terrifies him. It always has.

And Finnick's a goddamn fish out there.

Although Peeta knows Finnick is completely enamored with Annie, he _also_ doesn't want to look like an idiot by comparison in front of Katniss.

Peeta sits down on the picnic bench as the burgers cook. He leans back and puts his hands behind his head.

He looks out over the water. He sees Katniss with their new friends, as radiant as the sun in her two-piece bathing suit.

When she notices him looking at her she walks out of the lake and towards him. Peeta's eyes are drawn to her bare legs as she moves gracefully across the beach.

She joins him on the bench and starts brushing off the sand that clings to her wet feet.

"Finnick had an interesting idea just now," she tells him, grabbing a towel off the table. She squeezes the water from her hair and dries herself off.

"Oh?" Peeta asks. He picks up a nearby tube of sunblock and squeezes some into his palm. He starts rubbing it into her shoulders.

He knows she just applied sunblock twenty minutes ago and doesn't need more now. But he can't seem to keep his hands to himself anymore when she's around him.

"Yeah," she says. She turns away from him to give him better access to the back of her neck and shoulders. He can't help but grin to himself at her complicity as he works the lotion into her skin.

"He says we should go with them to Iowa," she continues. "I think we should, Peeta. They're leaving tomorrow, and I think it would be fun to hang out with them some more."

Peeta doesn't say anything for a long moment. He continues to rub her back in small circles as he thinks.

"Iowa?" he eventually asks. "I mean, sure. Why not?" He shrugs. "Never been there before, and this way we'd have a place to crash for a while. And these guys are great. So… sure." He stops rubbing her back and puts his chin on her shoulder from behind her. He kisses her neck. "Let's do it."

"I want to call home before we go, Peeta," she tells him.

His stomach lurches. He moves away from her a little. "Call home?" he asks weakly. "But… why?"

"It's been a week now," she says. "I mean, really, I need to call home. Let my mom know I'm ok, at least."

Peeta doesn't respond.

"You should call home too," she tells him gently. "Just to let them know you're alive and safe and… and everything."

He looks at her. "What if they ask me when I'm coming home, Katniss?" he asks. "I don't know how to answer that."

Katniss nods. She takes his hands in hers.

"Just let them know you're safe," she says. "The rest can wait until you're sure."

He turns away from her and buries his face in his hands.

* * *

But Peeta eventually admits to Katniss, and to himself, that she's right.

They've been gone for a week. They've been ignoring the phone calls and the texts long enough. He owes it to his family to let them know he's ok.

He begs Katniss to stay with him when he calls, though. He doesn't think he can do this alone.

Katniss agrees right away. "Of course," she says. "I'll be right beside you the whole time."

She puts her hand on his arm. He closes his eyes. He tries to summon strength from her touch.

He takes a deep breath to steady his nerves and punches his home number into his phone.

His mother picks up on the first ring.

"Peeta?" she says. She sounds alarmed. Concerned, even. Peeta lets his guard down infinitesimally.

"Hi, Mom," he says. He clears his throat. He looks at Katniss, and she nods at him. "Yeah, it's… it's me."

"Where the _hell_ are you?" she demands. Clearly angry now, all trace of concern gone from her voice.

The mother he remembers.

Peeta ignores her question and begins the speech he prepared with Katniss' help.

"I'm all right, Mom," he says. He closes his eyes again. "I'm fine. I'm with Katniss Everdeen and we're… we're on a road trip. We've met some new friends and-"

His mother cuts him off with a string of obscenities. She tells him that he's put them all through hell, but that she shouldn't have been surprised because he's always been worthless and stupid.

She informs him that he has exactly two days to return home. If he's not back by then, she'll be deactivating his phone and changing the locks on the house.

"If you want to play at being out on your own, then fine," she spits at him. "See how it is on your own. Be my guest."

"But – but Mom! We're at least _four_ days away from –"

She hangs up on him before he can finish the sentence.

Peeta takes the phone away from his ear slowly. He stares at it silently for a long moment.

"Peeta?" Katniss asks. She sounds worried. "What did your mom say?"

"She said…" he begins, slowly.

He trails off, and shakes his head, the enormity of his situation suddenly bearing down on him so heavily he can hardly breathe.

"She said to have fun in Iowa," he finally mumbles.


	6. Chapter 6

_a/n: I couldn't have written this chapter (or the next, and final, one) without **Court81981**'s amazing advice and guidance. Court, you are the world's best sounding board._

_Your thoughtful reviews, and all of your follows and favorites, mean so much to me. Thank you for reading along. _

* * *

Peeta wakes up when Katniss' phone starts vibrating loudly on the bedside table.

He glances at the clock on the other side of their motel room. It reads 3:14 a.m.

"Katniss," he murmurs into her ear. "Hey. Wake up."

She stirs a little in his arms.

"Hm?" she mumbles, still sleeping. She snuggles closer to him and burrows her face into his neck.

After another moment the phone stops buzzing. Peeta pulls her closer to him, closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep.

But the phone buzzes again, and then again, and then a fourth time. And now Peeta is fully awake.

He gently rolls Katniss over and gets out of bed.

Scratching his stomach and yawning, Peeta walks over to the table so he can shut the phone off himself.

He picks it up and blearily searches for the power button. He sees Katniss just missed four calls and has three voicemails. All from an area code he doesn't recognize.

He turns off the phone and bites his bottom lip.

He lies awake for a long time after that, listening to Katniss' deep even breaths and staring at the ceiling.

* * *

Peeta wakes up again a few hours later, the spot next to him in bed empty and cold.

He feels a momentary stab of panic, but hears the shower running in the bathroom before it can take root.

Breathing a small sigh of relief, Peeta sits up, stretches, and turns on the ancient TV.

There are only a few channels to choose from. He flips between them absently as he waits for Katniss to come back.

He finally settles on The Weather Channel. They'll be driving a lot today, and they might as well see what the weather is supposed to be like so they can plan their route.

Katniss comes out of the bathroom a moment later, one towel wrapped around her body and another around her head.

"Hey," he says to her, grinning. "Good morning."

"Morning," she says in response. She walks hurriedly to her suitcase, and bends at the waist as she rifles through it. Her short towel rides up, exposing her bare ass.

Peeta watches her. He thinks about how she rode him last night in this hotel room, straddling his lap, her tits in his face and her hands in his hair.

He starts getting hard inside his boxers.

"C'mere, Katniss," he tells her. Maybe she'll do that to him again, right now, if he asks nicely. He leans back against the headboard and reaches out to her. "Come back to bed."

"I can't," she tells him. She pulls out the clothes she was apparently looking for and starts dressing. "I need to call my dad."

Peeta drops his arm. "What?"

Katniss nods. "He left a bunch of messages overnight. Said it was an emergency and I needed to call right away." She looks at him. Her eyes are wide, terrified. "He _never_ calls me, Peeta."

She finishes dressing and grabs her phone. She sits on the bed next to him and dials her father's number.

As Katniss waits for him to pick up, Peeta puts his hand on her arm. He hopes the gesture reassures her. Reminds her that he's there for her, the way she's been there for him.

He tries to ignore the feeling in the pit of his stomach that tells him his world is about to fall to pieces.

* * *

But Katniss can't reach her father. She tries calling her mother at home, but the phone just rings and rings.

Everyone tries to distract her over breakfast at the Denny's in North Platte.

"Oooh, blueberry pancakes!" Annie says, loudly, as she flips through the menu. "I'm totally getting that. And an omelet too, I think."

The waitress pours coffee for everyone. When she puts the bowl of creamers on the table, Johanna teaches Katniss a two-person diner game she claims, boastfully, that she invented last summer.

She calls it "Mini-Moo Toss."

"One person holds a fork, like so," she demonstrates, pointing the tines of her fork at Finnick. "The other person throws a Mini-Moo half-and-half from across the table and tries to impale it on the fork. Whoever ends up with the most half-and-half on their shirt at the end of the meal loses."

"And I never lose," Finnick says, a determined look on his face.

"There's not much to do in Iowa," Annie tells Peeta apologetically, as if this explains everything.

Katniss says she'd like to play, and she smiles at them. But it's a fake smile, Peeta can tell right away. He knows all her smiles now. The smile doesn't reach her eyes, and she's trying, but it's not real.

Either way, Katniss demolishes her competition. Finnick's shirt is so soaked with cream by the end of breakfast that he needs to change before they hit the road again.

Peeta and Annie quietly agree to leave the waitress a generous tip.

* * *

Breakfast eaten, Peeta encourages their new friends to just go on ahead without them.

He looks over his shoulder and sees Katniss pacing the opposite end of the Denny's parking lot, holding her phone like like a lifeline.

Katniss won't be okay again until she reaches her father, Peeta explains quietly. They'll just stay here, in this little town, maybe hang out in a coffee shop or something, until she can find out what's going on.

Finnick claps Peeta on the back.

"We'll see you in Iowa City, Peeta," Annie says, sympathetically.

Johanna, to his surprise, pulls him into a bear hug.

Peeta watches them drive off, and then walks over to where Katniss is pacing.

"Can I drive?" he asks her, gently.

Her eyes are unfocused and she's shaking a little. Clearly, she's in no shape to drive.

She nods, and smiles wanly at him, and climbs into the passenger's seat of the truck without another word.

* * *

They drive around town for a while.

To Peeta's great disappointment, there isn't much to North Platte, and it doesn't take long for them to see everything there is to see. A few restaurants, a couple of rundown shops, a school, and then suddenly they're out of the town and into the country.

Peeta pulls the truck over when the road ends, frustrated that North Platte wasn't the distraction he'd hoped it would be.

"Let's explore," he suggests, desperately. He knows she's terrified. He tries to ignore the fact that he is, too.

He gets out of the truck and opens the passenger's side door and extends his hand.

To his relief, she takes it.

* * *

An hour later, they're lying next to each other in a field of grass, his hand tracing lazy patterns on her arm.

Peeta is just about to let the heat of the noon sun lull him to sleep when Katniss' phone buzzes to life again at last, startling them both.

She sits bolt upright and holds her phone to her ear.

"Hello?" Katniss practically shouts. "Dad? _Dad?"_

She's silent for a long time after that, listening. Peeta can hear her father's muffled words through the phone, but he cannot make out what he's saying.

Katniss raises her hand to her mouth as she listens. Her eyes are glassy with tears.

Peeta feels helpless. He starts rubbing her back, gently, as she listens. He doesn't know what else to do.

"I'm not sure," she says eventually. "Omaha, I think." She puts the phone down. "Peeta, where's the roadmap?"

He gets it out of the glove compartment of the truck and brings it to her. She unfolds it on the grass and traces Interstate 80 with her finger.

"Omaha or Denver," she tells her father. "Probably more direct flights to the west coast from Denver, I'd guess."

At her words, Peeta closes his eyes and lies back down on the grass. Wishing that he could freeze this moment in time and live in it forever. Knowing that he can't.

He lets his mind wander. He forces himself to think about Annie and Jo and Finnick. He wonders what their drive has been like so far today.

He doesn't want to listen to Katniss' half of the conversation anymore.

* * *

"Here's what happened," she says to him, finally off the phone. Her eyes are red and puffy from crying.

Her mother was in a car accident last night. A bad one. She was unconscious by the time she arrived at Sutter General Hospital by ambulance.

It had been so long since Alma Everdeen had been to the hospital that Katniss' father was still listed as her emergency contact. They called him at one in the morning to let him know, even though he now lives in Merced and hasn't spoken with Katniss' mother in three years.

And he, in turn, called Katniss.

And now, he's paying for Katniss to fly home so she can be with her mother.

"Because driving home will take too long," Peeta says, flatly. It isn't a question.

"Right," Katniss says. She wipes her nose on her sleeve.

"So… when do you leave?" Peeta asks, focusing all his attention on the blade of grass he's twirling between his fingers. He can't look her in the eye right now. He doesn't want this to happen. His insides are heaving.

Peeta knows he's being selfish right now, and that that makes him an asshole. He doesn't care.

"Tonight," she tells him quietly, and his heart shatters into a thousand brittle pieces. "There's a flight leaving Denver at 10 p.m. that flies direct into Oakland. Dad bought the ticket for me while we were on the phone."

Peeta nods wordlessly.

"Peeta…" she begins, and then trails off.

She touches him on the shoulder, gently. Giving in, he turns to look at her.

"So… I guess I'll meet up with you in Cali in a few days," he says, trying to sound calm, and feeling anything but. "It'll take me longer to drive home since I'll be by myself, but—"

She presses her finger to his lips. He stops talking.

"I think you should still go to Iowa City," she whispers.

Peeta grabs her hand, a little roughly, and pulls it away from his face. "What the hell are you talking about?" he demands.

"There's nothing for you in California," she tells him, slowly. "I mean, you can't go back to your parents' house. And—"

She doesn't finish her sentence. She leans forward and kisses his cheek. He closes his eyes.

"And what?" he asks, hoarsely.

Katniss doesn't answer.

"Katniss," Peeta finally says, breaking the silence. This is ridiculous. Can't she see that? "I'm not going to Iowa City by myself and live with people I just met. I'm going back to California," he tells her emphatically. "If you have to go back, then I'm coming too." Anything else is unthinkable.

She tries to protest some more. But he kisses her and kisses her and kisses her, and finally she stops fighting him. She throws her arms around him as he lies her gently on the grass.

"I'll live with my brother," Peeta tells her as he kisses down her throat. He has no idea if his brother will let him move in with him. It doesn't matter.

She closes her eyes and whimpers as he slowly unbuttons her shirt.

"I'll live on the street if I have to," he says, his mouth hovering over her breasts as he pulls her shirt from her body.

"Peeta, stop," she says suddenly.

He does. His eyes snap to hers.

She shakes her head from side to side.

"Even if you docome back to California… there won't be room for this." She gestures to him, and then to herself.

Peeta still isn't clear on exactly what he's become to her over the past week. Regardless, there's no doubt in Peeta's mind what "_this_" refers to.

"_I_ won't have room for this. Not with my mom sick, Peeta. Not anymore."

"Katniss…" he begins, his voice strangled. "Please…"

Katniss pushes him aside abruptly and stands up. She walks over to the truck, buttoning her shirt as she goes. She yanks open the door and climbs inside.

When Peeta returns to the truck fifteen minutes later, he finds her sitting in the driver's seat, her head buried in her hands.


	7. Chapter 7

_a/n: Thanks once again to __**Court81981**__ and __**MalTease**__ for helping me think through this story's ending, and for being such wonderful sounding boards throughout. Given how the story ends, I may post a short epilogue in the next week or so if there's sufficient reader interest. _

_Thank you all again for reading, reviewing, and indulging me in this plot bunny that just wouldn't leave until it was written. ;)_

_I'd also like to thank the tumblr Anon who requested an Everlark Road Trip drabble two months ago. You probably weren't wanting a 14,000 word fic, Anon. But I hope you enjoyed this little story all the same. _

_Lastly – come find me on tumblr if you'd like, where I'm __**jeeno2**__ as well._

* * *

At seven minutes to midnight, Peeta pulls Katniss' truck into a gas station about forty miles west of Denver.

As he slides his debit card into the machine, he glances over his shoulder at the mini-mart. Someone's at the register, fortunately, even at this hour. Peeta breathes a sigh of relief.

Peeta hopes the guy will let him use the phone in there. True to her word, Peeta's mother cut the service to his iPhone two days ago, and he needs to get in touch with Wheaton tonight.

Peeta won't change his plans no matter what his brother says, of course. But he feels weird about driving straight through the night without at least letting Wheaton know what's happening.

After the tank is full, Peeta replaces the pump and jogs across the parking lot to the store. He wanders the aisles a few minutes, getting some energy drinks and snacks for the road.

Peeta approaches the counter and pays for them, along with a candy bar and a few packs of wintermint gum.

But the guy at the register says he can't help him. It's against company policy to let customers use the store phone, he says. The guy – he can't be much older than Peeta – frowns a little when he tells him. Peeta thinks he might honestly feel bad about having to say no.

"I think there's a payphone at the BP two miles down the road, though," he adds. "Or… like, there used to be one, anyway."

Peeta thanks him and tries to smile.

But he can't waste time chasing down a payphone that might not exist anymore. He needs to get back to California as quickly as possible, and that's more important than calling Wheaton tonight.

Peeta gathers his purchases and leaves the store. The mini-mart was overly air-conditioned, and the warm night air feels good on his skin. He walks back to Katniss' truck as quickly as he can.

Once inside, Peeta turns the key in the ignition, takes a deep breath, and pops the top of his first energy drink of the night.

* * *

The clock on the dash reads 3:47 a.m. when Peeta finally gives up and pulls off at a rest stop just east of Grand Junction.

The sign says it's the last rest stop for over a hundred miles, and so he figures he probably should.

Peeta doesn't want to stop, of course. He doesn't want to stop, or to sleep, until he reaches Oakland.

But the energy drinks only do so much for him, and his eyes have been threatening to close on their own for the past half hour. Despite how badly he wants to just fucking _be _in California already, he knows if he falls asleep while driving he'll wreck Katniss' truck… and probably kill himself in the process.

He slowly pulls the truck up alongside two semis and puts it in park. Promising himself he'll just take a short nap, Peeta crawls over the truck's console and into the passenger seat. He leans it back as far as it will go, and places a wadded up sweatshirt under his head to serve as a pillow. He folds his arms across his chest and closes his eyes.

When he does he sees Katniss, as she'd looked when she left him to walk through airport security earlier this evening. In his mind's eye she's wearing a Santa Cruz sweatshirt and faded blue jeans, just as she had earlier. She carries her oversized duffel bag in her right hand and her backpack in her left.

Right before she goes through the metal detector she turns back to look at him. The corners of her mouth turn up a little when they make eye contact – is she smiling at him? grimacing? She's too far away for him to really tell – and she holds up her hand to him in a small wave.

As Peeta drifts off to sleep next to lonely truckers and their trucks, he wonders if he'll ever hold that hand in his again.

* * *

Peeta wakes up in the midmorning sunshine to the sound of someone pounding on the truck's passenger side window.

He blinks a few times and blearily turns his head towards the noise.

"Jesus Christ!" Wheaton shouts, making Peeta jump a little in his seat, when he sees who's parked in front of his building. "_Peeta_?"

Somewhere near the Utah border, Peeta stumbled upon the exact caffeine cocktail he'd been looking for ever since saying goodbye to Katniss. A shot of Red Bull, followed immediately by a swig of black gas station coffee, repeated over and over again until his hands started to shake, gave him just the buzz he'd needed to power through the rest of the drive.

Thanks to that discovery he's managed to stay awake for 20 of the past 22 hours, and arrived at Wheaton's place in much less time than he'd originally expected.

Peeta waves sheepishly at the older brother he hasn't spoken to in over a year. He adjusts his seat so that he's sitting up again and opens the door.

Wheaton's wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, obviously heading to work. His eyes are wide as he stares, wordlessly, at his brother.

After a long moment, Peeta breaks the silence.

"Can I crash here for a while?" he blurts out.

* * *

The door to the guest room in Wheaton's Lake Merritt condo is closed. Peeta is lying down on the comfortable guest bed and has the blankets up pulled over his head.

But he can still hear the shouting.

"No, Mom," Wheaton yells from the kitchen. Into the phone, Peeta assumes; their mother hasn't been welcome here in years. "I can't fucking believe you didn't tell me. He's _seventeen years old_, goddamnit!" Peeta hears a loud crash – perhaps the sound of something being thrown against a wall, and breaking – and then a long pause.

Peeta closes his eyes and burrows deeper under the covers.

"No," Wheaton shouts again. "No! Peeta could have been kidnapped, killed…"

Realizing it's pointless to try and sleep, Peeta gets out of bed and opens the door. He slowly and quietly walks down the hall to the small study, where he knows his sister-in-law, Bristel, is probably working.

He raps quietly on the door frame, and she looks up. When she sees him, her previous look of concentration is immediately replaced with one of concern.

"Peeta," she says, her voice full of empathy. She rushes over to him and gathers him into her arms.

He barely knows Bristel – Wheaton essentially shut all of them out when he shut out their parents – but her arms are comforting, and he lets her hold him.

"Why didn't you call us for help?" she asks him quietly.

Peeta doesn't know how to answer that.

He knows the reasons why, of course. He has no real relationship with Wheaton. Wheaton left for UCLA when he was eighteen and Peeta was seven. And he never really came home again.

But even if he had been close with Wheaton, when Katniss first suggested they run off together, the thought of seeing the country with her in her truck had captivated him. And it had pushed every rational solution to his problem right out of his head.

He can't tell Bristel any of this, of course.

"I... don't know," he lies. "But… but thank you for letting me stay."

* * *

It takes Peeta almost a week to work up the nerve to go to Katniss' mother's house.

He can't afford to get his phone turned back on yet, but he's tried calling her on Wheaton's phone every night since he's been back.

It goes straight to voicemail every time.

Peeta doesn't leave messages. He doesn't think leaving a message would be the right thing to do, given how they left things between them when they parted a little over a week ago.

On his first Saturday morning back in California, Peeta wakes up early. And he suddenly decides that even though he still hasn't spoken with Katniss, he just can't put this off any longer.

He has no idea if Katniss will be at home this morning, of course. He doesn't know _where_ the hell she is right now.

But waiting any longer to see her is just stupid.

His mind made up, he dresses quickly, pulls on his A's cap with the straight bill, and drives off towards El Cerrito.

As he heads north along Telegraph Avenue, his stomach in knots, he comes up with a plan.

If she gets angry when he shows up unannounced, and tells him to leave before he can say anything, he'll tell her he only came because he needed to return her truck. He'll tell her that he'll leave her alone forever if that's what she wants. _But…_ he can't very well keep her truck, now can he.

And he'll walk out her mother's front door, head over to El Cerrito's BART stop, and take the train to Lake Merritt. And that will be the end of it.

That's what he's going to do, he tells himself, as he gets closer to UCBerkeley and the road becomes clogged with pedestrians.

* * *

Katniss is in front of her house, crouched on the ground, tending to her mother's garden when Peeta arrives.

Her hair is pulled back and braided. The collar of her short-sleeved white t-shirt is smudged with dirt.

He parks the truck in front of her house and turns off the ignition. His stomach fills with butterflies and he grips the steering wheel of the truck with sweaty palms.

Suddenly, he realizes he has no idea what to say to her if she _doesn't_ throw him out of her house. Should he say, thanks for giving him the chance to see the country? Thanks for kissing him? For fucking him? Thanks for letting him… have whatever it was they had, even if it was only for a few days?

He closes his eyes, buries his face in his hands, and tries to regulate his breathing.

When he looks up again a moment later, she's standing right outside the driver's side door.

Her face is drawn. There are dark circles under her eyes so pronounced it looks like she hasn't slept in days. It occurs to him that maybe she hasn't.

Still holding her gaze, Peeta opens the door wide enough for him to get out of the truck.

His hands are still clammy, and they're starting to shake.

_Here goes nothing._

"Katniss—" he begins.

She cuts him off by launching herself at him and wrapping her arms around him as tightly as she can. He wraps his own arms around her in response. He can't do anything else.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she tells him through her tears, as she kisses his cheeks, his nose, his forehead. Explains that through the shock of the news, and the grief and the loss, she just wasn't herself. Didn't know what she was saying. Or doing.

She pulls away from him a little and says, on a whisper, "I don't think I'm any good at this, Peeta. But… but I want to try, I think."

He pulls her back to him and buries his face in her neck.

And he decides that, even if he doesn't know exactly what to say, for now, this is enough.


	8. Chapter 8

_a/n: For those of you who wanted an epilogue, here it is. :) Thank you all so much for reading and for your support._

* * *

It doesn't take Peeta long to pack.

He's not taking a lot with him. After all, there won't be much room in the dorms. Or in Katniss' truck for that matter.

He's bringing his clothes of course, and a few pairs of shoes. Some of his art supplies he worries he won't be able to easily replace in Iowa City. But that's about it.

Peeta knows that if he's forgotten something important, Wheaton can just ship it to him once he's settled. Or he can pick it up himself over winter break.

Peeta checks his phone again. It's 8:45 a.m., meaning Katniss should be here in about fifteen minutes, packed and ready to go herself.

He knows he has everything ready, but he glances nervously at his to-do list one last time just to be sure.

Last night he said goodbye to his parents. The final, and most unpleasant, task he needed to accomplish before leaving. It was the first he'd spoken with them in almost six months – the first words he'd said to them since telling them he was going to college, with Katniss, at The University of Iowa.

During that conversation six months ago, his mother had loudly disapproved of his decision to go to school out of state. She must have yelled at him for a good fifteen minutes. But Peeta stood his ground. And when she was finally finished, he told her, again, and firmly, that he was going to The University of Iowa with Katniss.

Since Peeta is paying for it all through work study and a scholarship that will cover the out-of-state tuition, he'd seen no reason to contact his parents again until it was time for him to go.

It took him two hours to work up the nerve to call his mother last night. But the conversation, such as it was, only lasted about thirty seconds.

Just as Peeta's about to review his to-do-list a third time his phone buzzes with a new text.

It's from Katniss.

_Sorry I'm late, P. Just leaving Mom's now. See you soon. Love you._

It doesn't matter that Peeta's been officially "with" Katniss Everdeen for about a year now. It doesn't matter that she's been telling him she loves him for the better part of the past nine months. His heart still races every time she says it.

* * *

When Katniss finally arrives, and it's time for Peeta to go, Wheaton breaks down a little.

It makes Peeta feel awkward.

Wheaton and Bristel took him in when he had nowhere else to go last summer, and he'll always be grateful for that. But the brothers are still not close – not close the way Peeta knows some brothers are close, anyway – and he hadn't expected this reaction from Wheaton at all.

As Katniss helps Peeta load his things into her truck, Wheaton pulls his younger brother into a bear hug and makes a choking noise in his ear that sounds like crying.

"Be sure to call us when you get there," Bristel says kindly, patting Peeta on the back as the brothers pull apart.

"Of course," Peeta says, shouldering his duffel bag. He looks over at Wheaton and notices, for the first time, that his eyes are rimmed with red.

He doesn't know what to say.

"I'll see you in a few months," Peeta decides on at last, attempting to reassure the brother and sister-in-law who, until now, he hadn't realized needed reassurance.

Wheaton nods and manages a small smile as Peeta, without breaking eye contact with him, gets into the truck.

* * *

Peeta's hand rests lightly on Katniss' upper thigh as she pulls away from the curb.

"Everything all right with your mother?" he asks quietly.

Katniss nods.

"Yeah," she says, putting her foot on the brake as she approaches the stop sign at the end of Wheaton's block. "Her physical therapy's down to once a month now. And Dad's paying for all of it." She shakes her head. "It's time to go."

Peeta nods in wordless agreement. Because she's right.

Things were dicey with Katniss' mother's health in those early months, of course. And as her mother recuperated, Katniss barely left her side. But with her mother now essentially fully recovered, there's nothing keeping either of them here anymore.

They're eighteen, and there's no reason for them to stay anywhere they don't want to be.

"Do you want to go the same way we went last time?" Peeta asks her. Meaning, of course, the route they took last summer, the route of their road trip that changed everything between them.

Katniss is quiet for a long moment.

"Well," she says, finally. "Finnick, Annie, and Jo aren't expecting us for two weeks, right?" She turns to look at him, briefly, as she comes to a stop at a red light. "Wanna try a different way?"

Peeta squeezes her thigh. He smiles.

"Sure," he says. _Why not?_ There was a lot they never got a chance to see. He opens the glove compartment and pulls out the now-tattered road map that served them so well last year.

"Let's do it."

_-Fin-_

* * *

_Let us be lovers_

_We'll marry our fortunes together_

_I've got some real estate here in my bag_

_So we bought a pack of cigarettes_

_And Mrs. Wagner's pies_

_And walked off to look for America…_

_- Simon and Garfunkel, "America"_


End file.
